Human development class: Discussion Board (Chapter 3: Birth & The Newborn)

Then, please interview one woman or man about the her/his birth experience (when his or her child was born).  If the individual has more than one child, please have the person report only about one.  Please find out how the person knew labor was starting and include the story thereafter.  

Compose your list of possible questions beforehand. Some folks will love to just tell it all and some may need some encouragement on the details, so be sure you have your questions ready.  For questions, you might consider asking things like: How did you know labor was beginning? Did the person go to a hospital? Did it go as planned?  Was anyone there to help?  Was it better or worse than the person anticipated?  How did the person feel when the child was actually born?  Was the baby alright when born? Was the mother okay?  Also, find out a bit about the context of this birth: marital status, age, employment, perhaps some details, if relevant, about the person's culture or country of origin, and so on.   

Please be sure you focus on the birth experience itself.  You can certainly give details about how the pregnancy went and what happened after the birth, but don't miss the bulk of the assignment about what happened during the birth process.  If the person you decided to interview did not give much detail, you may need to select someone else.

If you have a child and want to post your own experience or that of your partner, that is fine.  Whomever you choose, please ask them if it is alright to use his or her story in our discussion board.  

Citing Guidelines:

• You need to cite your interview with this person in APA style.

You will see that you do not need to cite in a references section at the end.  You only need to put the info you see below in parentheses right at the very end of your interview.  Go here (Links to an external site.) to see how citing an interview looks. (Links to an external site.)

Here's what this above website basically says: "No personal communication is included in your reference list; instead, parenthetically cite the communicator's name, the phrase "personal communication," and the date of the communication in your main text only.  [For example]

(E. Robbins, personal communication, January 4, 2018)."

You write this at the VERY end of the last paragraph where you discuss that person.  You do not need to write it at the end of every paragraph or every sentence that comes from the interview.  If you put it at the very end of the entire work you write, that will work, too.  

• If you quote some exact words, you should use quotation marks around these items.  If you just summarize, you just put this reference once, right at the end and no quotation marks.  


• You do need to cite in APA style if you used any other information from elsewhere (if you, for example, went online and looked up something that happened historically when this person was a kid).  If you did so, you would need to cite this using APA style (both in-text and at the end of your posting).  If you quote, be sure you use quotation marks.

Here's some examples of citing a webpage:

If it is a webpage with NO authors, read here (Links to an external site.).

This (Links to an external site.) may also be helpful for citing webpages.

Writing Guidelines:

Please first introduce a little about the person at the time of the birth experience (For example: marital status, age, employment, perhaps some details-if relevant-about the person's culture or country of origin, and so on).  Then, summarize the person's experiences.

Please write in paragraph form.  (You should NOT simply make a list of your questions and answers.)  Be sure to edit your work and make individual paragraphs.  (One giant paragraph would not be appropriate here.  You need to break it into manageable bits.  For example, one paragraph for an introduction to the person.  Another for the first part of the story at home.  Another for...). Ask me if you need help with organizing.

Grading Guidelines:

Students often loose the most points for not organizing and developing their ideas, not editing, and not being clear.  Please be sure you break your work into manageable paragraphs (not just one huge, on-going post).  Initial posts are typically quite long.